Knee Injury Will Keep Islanders’ Tavares Out for Season

By Allan Kreda

Feb. 20, 2014

SYOSSET, N.Y. — John Tavares is featured this month on the cover of the Islanders’ program, wearing a red and white Team Canada sweater. But when fans return to Nassau Coliseum on Feb. 27 for a game against Toronto, the Islanders’ first matchup after the Olympic break, they will not see Tavares, the team’s captain, on the ice.

Tavares, 23, will miss the rest of the season after tearing the medial collateral ligament and meniscus in his left knee on Wednesday when he was checked awkwardly into the boards by defenseman Arturs Kulda during Canada’s 2-1 quarterfinal win over Latvia.

With 22 games remaining in a campaign that began with promise, the Islanders, 12 points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, already had a titanic task in making the postseason for a second straight season.

“Hopefully we can take advantage of this bad situation and grow as a team,” said Tavares’s linemate Kyle Okposo, who is having a career year with 24 goals and 35 assists. “Life does go on. We will just all have to work harder.”

Tavares, a center, is third in the N.H.L. with 66 points (24 goals and 42 assists) and has been a model of durability over his five seasons. He missed only one of the first 60 games this season, and only 4 of the 354 since the Islanders made him the top overall pick of the 2009 draft.

Wednesday was not the first time Kulda had delivered a hard hit in international play. While playing for Latvia at the 2011 world championships, he checked Radek Martinek, a Czech defenseman and an Islanders teammate of Tavares’s, into the boards and knocked him unconscious. Kulda was suspended for three games for leaving his feet to deliver the hit.

“That’s just a hockey play,” Islanders Coach Jack Capuano said Thursday of the hit on Tavares, adding that he had exchanged text messages with Tavares. “There are a lot of hits like that in the course of a game. John was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time.”

Islanders right wing Colin McDonald said he expected Tavares’s pain to be twofold: physical and emotional.

“He has to be upset, really disappointed, because he worked so hard to make Team Canada and he works so much for all of us,” McDonald said. “It’s going to hurt because he put in so much effort. Now it’s up to us to work harder and be better even without John.”

Tavares is not the only N.H.L. player to be injured in Sochi. Mats Zuccarello, who leads the Rangers with 43 points, broke his hand while playing for Norway, and the Detroit Red Wings’ captain, Henrik Zetterberg, worsened a back injury while playing for Sweden.

Capuano chose to focus only on what was ahead for his young squad.

“For me, it’s about a chance to continue teaching,” he said. “I want to make sure we stay positive and continue to learn.”

September’s training camp will most likely be the next time Tavares is on the ice with the Islanders, but Capuano said there were no worries.

“John is the player he is because he’s constantly motivated,” Capuano said. “He’s constantly thinking the game and thinking of ways he can improve his game. That’s what elite players do.

“Johnny has worked to be where he is today. I’ve seen a different player emerge and grow since I’ve been here. It’s about his discipline, the intangibles. It’s about his work ethic and how he handles himself on and off the ice. He needs no extra motivation. He will come back stronger.”